


Call You Half Mine

by MeganMay15347



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers, Minor Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Pietro Maximoff Lives, Protective Clint Barton, Protective Natasha Romanov, Protective Siblings, Stephen Strange & Wong Friendship, Stephen Strange is bad at feelings, Wong is a Good Bro (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-08 04:12:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18886936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeganMay15347/pseuds/MeganMay15347
Summary: The youngest of the Maximoff triplets with powers just like her siblings, Celeste Maximoff could never conceptualize just how cruel the world truly was until she was branded as a fugitive for doing what she believed in her heart was the right thing. It leaves her hiding from the government and in a bad place with many people she once considered family and friends. But, in doing so, she happens across the most unusual and peculiar person. He's just enticing enough for her to stop worrying if only for a little while.But trouble is always lurking around the corner, especially when the Mad Titan is involved.





	1. The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> So, since it's canon that Pietro is 12 minutes older than Wanda, Wanda is going to be 9 minutes older than Celeste. They're birthday will also be August 10, 1992.
> 
> A few things will be different in this story. Like...Pietro lives! I couldn't stand that they killed him for shock value so I'm bringing him back. Also, Clint and Laura are siblings, not husband and wife. Sorry. But I love the pairing of Clint and Natasha better. AND Clint will be joining them for Infinity Wars. Yay!
> 
> Okay. Onto the Story!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You messed with my family. You won't get to do that a second time."

“What about the volunteers?”

“The dead will be buried so deep their own ghosts won’t be able to find them.”

“And the survivors?”

“The triplets.”

The two HYDRA men came up to the three rooms containing the Maximoff triplets. Pietro was using his supersonic speed to bash himself against the walls. Wanda used her telekinesis to raise the wooden blocks in her cell without touching them as she sat on the floor. Celeste sat on the middle of her bed, dropping through it as she phased down to the ground below startled.

“Sooner or later, they will meet the triplets. It’s not a world of spies anymore. Not even a world of heroes. This is the age of miracles, Doctor. There’s nothing more horrifying than a miracle.”

Pietro stopped in his movements; Celeste moved away from the bed; Wanda smashed two blocks together.

 

-~-

 

Celeste wasn’t a violent person.

Listening to Ultron’s plans for the Avengers, his plans for the world, made her skin crawl. But she followed him for her sibling’s sake. She had never been separated from them in her life, and the thought of being on her own terrified her. She was a quiet but unwilling participant of their raids on different facilities, helping her siblings faze through the walls and using her elemental power to move the air and earth to help her sister. Feeling her heart drop every time a person died, Pietro dragged her away from every dead body.

She watched as Ultron severed Ulysses Klaue’s arm with a startled gasp and turned into Wanda’s shoulder, who held onto her little sister. She listened as Ultron went on a rant about Stark, whom they all had a hatred for.

“Ah, Junior,” Stark’s voice came. Celeste pulled herself away from Wanda, tucking her dark auburn hair behind her ear, as they trained themselves on the three approaching Avengers. “You’re gonna break your old man’s heart.”

“If I have to,” Ultron said.

Wanda walked forward, and Pietro was not far behind. Celeste stayed back, ready to phase through anything and ready to help her siblings phase through whatever the Avengers threw at them as well.

“Nobody has to break anything,” Thor said.

The four approached the three Avengers.

“Clearly you've never made an omelet,” Ultron said.

“He beat me by one second,” Tony said to his teammates.

“Ah, yes,” Pietro said. “He’s funny. Mr. Stark. It’s what? Comfortable? Like old times?”

“This was never my life,” Tony said, looking down at the missiles.

“You three can still walk away from this,” Captain America aka Steve Rogers said.

“Oh, we will,” Wanda said.

“I know you’ve suffered,” Captain continued.

Ultron scoffed as well as he could as he chuckled mechanically. “Captain America. God’s righteous man. Pretending you could live without a war. I can’t physically throw up in my mouth, but-”

“If you believe in peace,” Thor said, “then let us keep it.”

Anger foreignly filled Celeste as she thought of her parents and hiding under the bed in the apartment. “Peace? You do not understand the _meaning_ of peace.”

“I think you’re confusing “peace” with “quiet,”” Ultron said.

 

Fighting ensued.

Pietro and Wanda were best at using their powers offensively; Celeste was best at defense.

She watched from ten paces behind as Wanda failed to manipulate the man known as Clint Barton. Her blue eyes widened as she watched Barton attach an arrow to her sister’s forehead. She moved forward, to help her sister when Pietro sped up past her, kicked Barton through a window, and helped their sister out of the building.

Celeste wasn’t a violent or angry person. But when someone threatened to tear apart her already torn apart family, she got pissed. And when she got pissed, she got violent.

Moving toward the fallen Avenger, she used the air around them to move the glass up into the air into a small circle above the man. Barton stared at her, the one triplet that he hadn’t had the pleasure of encountering. The files all said she had been the most docile and timid one, the one that was the gentlest out of the three; he seemed to have caught her at a bad time.

“You messed with my family,” she said, her Sokovian accent as thick as her siblings. The emotion in her voice was raw, that of a child being hurt or betrayed for the first time. “You won’t get to do that a second time.”

She dropped the glass on top of the man who groaned as his unprotected skin was pierced. She walked out into the hallway and watched as her brother sped up to her.

“We didn’t know where you were,” he said, picking her up.

Celeste looked back at Barton. “I had something to take care of.”

 

 

After finding out what Ultron’s real plans were, Pietro took his younger sisters and sped out of the place before any harm could be done to them. Stopping along one of the side streets for pedestrians only, they saw a small television with the news on reporting on the fight between Ultron and Captain America. Pietro looked down at his sisters in concern as both Wanda and Celeste stared at the television mortified.

Pietro sped the three of them into the train that Ultron and Steve were in and attempted to break up the fighting. Ultron went to go after him but on the other side were Celeste and Wanda, the latter of whom used her telekinetic powers to create a barricade between her brother and the mechanical monster.

Ultron’s attention went from Pietro to Wanda and Celeste. “Please, don’t do this," he said as sympathetically as he could sound.

“What choice do we have?” Wanda asked.

When Ultron’s attempt at a blast meant for Pietro failed and created a hole through the driver cab, he leaped out the door and flew away. Steve tried to go after him, but it was no use.

He yelled at someone to secure a package before looking at the triplets. “Civilians in our path.” Pietro was off leaving his sisters behind. “Can you two stop this?”

Wanda and Celeste, both the same height, shared a look. They hadn’t done anything on that big of a scale before, but it was worth it with their brother out there and people at risk. Wanda used her telekinesis to lock up the train’s wheels as Celeste used her power over the elements to raise the ground from above to prevent the train from continuing its path. At first, the momentum of the train carried it on until the blocks in its path, and the locked-up wheels eventually put a stop to the train’s movements.

Wanda and Celeste got off in a hurry to find their brother gasping for breath as he bent over with his hands on his knees.

“I’m fine,” Pietro waved off their concern, taking a seat. “I just need to take a minute.”

Steve Rogers walked up to them. “I’m very tempted not to give you one.”

Celeste took both her brother and her sister’s hands into her’s so that she could help them phase through the Captain if the need came about. Despite not wanting to be apart of Ultron’s plan, she didn’t want to be apart of the Avengers, either. Not with Tony Stark on the team.

“The Cradle,” Wanda said. “Did you get it?”

“Stark will take care of it,” Captain Rogers said.

Celeste tightened her grip on her siblings' hands in fear. “No,” she breathed out, “no, he won’t.”

It was quiet for a moment as Captain Rogers looked at Celeste. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Stark’s not crazy.”

“He will do anything to make things right,” Wanda said, squeezing Celeste’s hand back.

Steve looked at Wanda confused before talking into his comms which seemed to garner no response.

“Ultron can’t tell the difference between _saving_ the world and _destroying_ it. Where do you think he gets that?” Wanda asked, tilting her head.

 

 

With Novi Grad high in the sky above the Earth, Celeste rushed to one of the boats set to carry people off the floating rock with Clint Barton to make sure everybody was there when a woman began to cry out for her son. Turning around to spot a child underneath a pile of rubble, Celeste was the first to run toward the boy; Clint followed after to help and make sure she was safe.

“Come on,” Celeste said comfortingly to the bleeding boy, helping him out of the ditch, “time to go.”

With Clint’s help, she picked the boy up just as gunfire began to rain from the sky. As it got closer to them, Celeste saw her brother and shook her head. She could see the wheels turning, calculating how fast he needed to be to save them. But she had it. She grabbed Clint and the boy and, with all her strength, phased them through the hail of bullets. Just as she let go of her powers and set the little boy on the ground, satisfied that they were all safe, a stray bullet hit her in her back and passed through her stomach. Celeste could feel a heat radiating through her stomach as she dropped to her knees, her hands covering her stomach as blood began to seep through her fingers and stain her hands red.

"I," Celeste stuttered, ready to fall to the ground when she was caught by somebody. She looked up to see familiar and comforting baby blue eyes that held much more worry than they normally held. "I-"

Her brother hushed her as her eyes fluttered shut. “Hey,” he patted her face, “hey, El. Hey. Stay awake.”

But she lost consciousness.

 

When she woke up, she was in a hospital-like bed with her triplet brother and sister talking amongst themselves in the corner of the room near the door. Their backs were turned to Celeste and only when Celeste groaned as she pushed herself up on the bed did they turn around.

“You’re awake,” Pietro said happily.

Wanda rushed over to Celeste’s side. “I thought I lost you.” She petted back the hair in Celeste’s face. “You were out for days. They didn’t know if you were going to wake.”

“I’m here.” Celeste smiled, grabbing her sister’s hand. She glanced up at Pietro. “I’m here.”

 

-~- 

 

It was roughly a year later when the Sokovian Accords were slammed down on a table in front of the Avengers. They had been shown different videos of different disasters that almost had Celeste walking out of the room at her hand in Lagos. It broke them apart. Despite Pietro’s initial objection, he was eventually won over by Tony and Rhodey, making the sting of betrayal worse to Wanda and Celeste who stuck by Steve.

Getting locked away with her sister hurt the worst as Tony walked by them, but she didn’t say a word, wondering where her triplet brother was. When she got out of there, they would have a serious talk about what happened just the three of them. But when Steve got there and busted them out, she knew there was no going back. No old life. No Avengers.

Just a whole lot of running.


	2. Meeting Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I want my freedom. I want to live my life without having to look over my shoulder in fear of someone coming to capture me. I thought I was done with that life."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First....It's been a while since I've updated. So sorry.
> 
> Second, since I've established Celeste's birthday as August 10, 1992, I thought I ought to address Stephen Strange's as it's never actually given. I don't want them to be too apart in age, but I want it to fit with canon so I'm making his birthday December 1, 1981.

Whether she wanted to be there or not, Celeste Maximoff found her way back to New York City. For the past year, it had been her home when her home had been destroyed. It was tough to find a place to live as a criminal, but it was possible when she had friends in high places. With the help of Natasha and Clint, who had visited her in her apartment at least once every two weeks in the past seven months, she had gotten rid of her Sokovian accent and replaced it with an American one to better fit in. It was an inner struggle to erase all of who she was, but she would do anything to remain out of a jail cell.

"El," Pietro said in his Sokovian accent, staring out of the window of Celeste's apartment. "Do you think you should go out again?"

Celeste sighed, holding a warm mug of tea in her one hand. She stared out of the same window in contemplation. She had enough food in the fridge to last her a few more days, but it was mostly bland food that she reserved for bad days where she couldn't make it to the store. She wanted better and healthier food than what she currently had stocked. But that wasn't the meaning behind his question, she knew that. His question meant 'do you have to go out into the world and potentially get caught and thrown away forever?'

"I haven't been out for five days," Celeste said, her own Sokovian accent more pronounced with her brother around. She moved away from the window to sit at the small table. "It would be nice to breathe in the fresh air."

Pietro looked over at his sister who still stared out of the window in yearning. This was not the little sister from two years ago. The one crying because she hated when he and Wanda went out to protest fearing they might not make it back. The one trailing after them when they volunteered to be experimented on. The one terrified of confrontation, ready to run at a moment's notice. This was a changed woman, a grown woman, sitting at the table. One he almost didn't recognize as blood.

He worried about her the most out of her and Wanda. At least Wanda had Vision to keep her safe; Celeste was on her own. Being alone and a fugitive was never a good thing. It was one of the many reasons why he visited her so often to keep an eye on her while visiting Wanda in Scotland less regularly to check-in.

"Maybe that is a good thing," Pietro said with a shrug of his shoulders. "You won't be caught."

Celeste let out a heavy sigh and shook her head. "No." She set down her mug of cooling tea. "No, I cannot go on living my life in fear. If being an Avenger taught me anything, it's that life is hard and I have to work harder to push through." Pietro looked at his sister in admiration for the woman she was becoming. "I'm going out. You can either come with or stay behind to mind the apartment."

Celeste got up from the table and went into her bedroom to change, leaving her cold tea behind. Pietro didn't want to argue with her anymore, nor did he want to leave her alone in the world. But he knew she needed her space. So much had changed with who Celeste was after her escape from the raft. She no longer  _needed_ to be near her triplet siblings every second of every day to know that they were safe and alive. She had less fear of the world she lived in, but more compassion than ever before.

So, when she came back out in civilian clothing, a pair of black jeans, black combat boots, and a white tee-shirt underneath a black zip-up jacket, he nodded his head toward the door. He would let her go on her own. For someone with the power to quite literally shape the world, she looked so very ordinary.

Celeste left the house alone carrying her wallet and phone just in case she needed backup. The silence was rare and odd, but she enjoyed it. Without Pietro's constant worry, without Clint's constant over-protectiveness, without Natasha's constant need to help, without Wanda's daily phone calls, she felt inexplicably free. She felt her shoulders were lighter, and the air she breathed was cleaner.

She made her way to a farmer's market near Bleecker Street. Celeste stopped to smell apples and oranges and even a bouquet of roses. She continued her way down, picking up and purchasing some fruit along the way. Seeing a small boy look longingly at a mango, she bought it and handed it to the boy who looked strikingly like Pietro at the age of eight. He smiled up at her and, with a thanks, bounded away down the street. She decided to pick a few more things when she bumped into someone in peculiar robes.

"Excuse me," Celeste said in her American accent. "Watch where you're going."

The man with dark hair and a grey streak on either side of his head wearing strange robes and a cloak just stared at her in fascination. She was tempted to ask him who he was and why he was staring at her like that when he walked past her and left. Confused, she continued on and purchased her food before returning to her apartment and her brother who stood by the door with a worried look.

"I was just about to come looking," Pietro said, helping Celeste bring in the bags.

Celeste rolled her eyes. "If you cannot contain yourself and your worry," she said, her natural accent back, dropping the bags on the island counter, "then leave."

Pietro looked shocked and offended. "I'm only trying to help."

"I don't need your help now," Celeste said, unloading the bags. "I needed it at the Accords. I needed my brother to side with me, to side with Wanda. But you couldn't do that."

"El, I was only trying to-"

Celeste put out her hand, palm facing toward the door when a gust of wind opened it, slamming into the wall behind it. "Leave," she said bluntly. "I am not in the mood for this argument again."

Pietro looked like he was about to argue when Celeste used the air around them to push Pietro through the door and shut the door behind him. She sighed, placing her hands on the counter. She had heard the argument before many times.

 

_"You should have cared enough not to sign the Accords."_

_"You have to listen, El, all I care about it your safety. You and Wanda."_

_"I want my freedom. I want to live my life without having to look over my shoulder in fear of someone coming to capture me. I thought I was done with that life."_

_"Then, come with me. Make a deal with them. You are on your own, Wanda is not. You are the one I am most worried about."_

_"Find me when you're on my side."_

_"I am on your side! El! Listen to me!"_

 

Celeste sat down on the beige settee and stared out of the window and into the darkening world about to welcome the night. She didn't feel tired, too wound up from the half argument with Pietro. Drinking the last of her tea from earlier, she got up and washed the mug. She wanted to go out into the night where most people would be in their homes, getting ready for sleep. At night, it was less likely she would be taken away. At night, she felt like a real criminal walking the streets.

Zipping up her jacket and pulling the hood over her head, she snuck out into the night feeling as though she was being watched with every step she took. Looking over her shoulder with every other step created images in her mind that came from her nightmares. Monsters lurking in the shadows created by the lights and hands coming out to snatch her away. Despite not seeing anything, she took every alleyway and turned every corner as fast as she could without looking guilty of a crime.

Getting to her destination, Celeste walked into the warm cafe-bookstore and out of the cold early February night. She shook off the flurries of snow that had began to fall that had made their way onto her as she flipped down her hood.

"You're usual, El?" Ben, the owner of Eat & Read, said with a smile lighting up his dark features.

Celeste nodded her head as she took a seat.

Ben knew who Celeste was, he had seen the news cycles on the fugitive and her friends. The temptation to call the police when she first entered Eat & Read was silenced when he saw her help an elderly couple who were his regulars when no one else would. He made a choice that day to not turn her in and watched as, every time she came in, she was kind to those who were kind to her and kinder to those who were rude to her. She wasn't the cruel person they claimed her to be on the news as they railed against her for the first few months after her escape from the Raft.

"Here you go," Ben said, setting down a hot cup of oolong tea in front of Celeste who picked it up almost immediately. "You haven't been around in a few days."

Celeste took a few sips of the piping hot tea as she nodded her head. "My brother was staying in my apartment," Celeste said in her American accent. "He can be a bit overbearing at times."

Ben smiled at Celeste. "Well, that's family for ya. You might not always agree on everything, but they're there when you need them the most."

After a few seconds of silence, Ben tapped the table twice before getting up and leaving the table. Celeste stared down at her tea in contemplation, thinking about her family. Once, it was a five-person family. Despite living in war-torn Sokovia, her parents did everything they could to give the triplets the life they deserved. A life filled with love and compassion, a life where calm voices were used and never raised. Hands were used for high-fives and never slaps across the face. It was the best life they could have until one night during dinner a mortar shell hit the apartment building killing their parents and their happy life along with them.

Drink her tea, Celeste knew that Pietro, as the oldest, only did what he thought was best for her and Wanda. It was hard to grow up fast, but Pietro did everything he could to help preserve Wanda and Celeste's innocence despite the world's desperation to tear it away. She couldn't fault her triplet brother for only wanting to do the best by them, even if it was sometimes not what Wanda and Celeste wanted.

Deciding to go home and call Wanda, who was much better with words, to talk to Pietro, she paid for her tea and said goodbye to Ben. Walking into the cold night caused an almost violent shiver to run down her spine. She hated the cold, always had. It made her walk only a fraction faster back to her apartment.

"Celeste Maximoff."

Tension pulled in Celeste's back and shoulders at the unknown male voice as she stopped walking. Nobody around here except Ben knew her name; she went by the alias Molly Claire if ever asked for a name. For someone to use her name meant she was in trouble. Her hands faced palm down towards the street as the pebbles began to bounce and shake.

"Who are you?" Celeste asked in her Sokovian accent.

She turned around to face the unknown man to find it was the same one she had bumped into at the market. Same robes, same cloak, same hair, and even the same expression. Her heartbeat sped up, knowing that he could've possibly been following her, and her new life was compromised

"My name is Stephen Strange."

"Are you following me?"

"No," Stephen said with a shake of his head. Celeste narrowed her eyes at him, and he closed his eyes in annoyance as the red cloak fluttered in the nonexistent wind. "Well, technically  _yes,_ but only-" The ground began to rumble to life under their feet; the rocks began to shake violently. "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"Why?" Celeste asked, tilting her head. "What are you going to do? Lock me up again?"

Understanding passed over Stephen's face. "I'm not with the government. I only want to help you."

The admission didn't lessen the tension in her back or the rumbling of the street as she straightened her back. Her mind went to Pietro, who only wanted to help her, and all she did was be cruel to her brother. Guilt pooled in her stomach.

"I'm a fugitive," Celeste said, hands still pointed down at the street. "Why would you want to help when it would only lead you to trouble?"

"I was a doctor once," he said.

Celeste shook her head. "I do not need a doctor," she said.

"I'm not," Stephen sighed, "I'm not a doctor anymore." Celeste was confused. The ground ceased its rumbling and the rocks settled back down in her mind's distraction from using her powers. "I was in a bad car crash and lost the use of my hands," he explained to Celeste. "I went to a place called Kamar-Taj and met a woman called the Ancient One who helped me find a way to live again."

"I _am_ living," Celeste said.

"Are you?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. The cloak seemed to have a mind of its own as it fluttered about and wrapped itself around Stephen a few times. "I've seen what the Avengers have done, I know of your powers. What I want to do is offer you a safe place to stay to practice and perfect your powers, so no one has to ever get hurt again."

Tears pooled in her eyes, Vision's words coming into her head.

 

_"You're not allowed to leave."_

_"Whose orders?"_

_"Mr. Stark's. He believes that until everything is on more solid ground, you and Wanda should stay hidden to avoid the possibility of another public incident."_

_"And Pietro? Where's my brother?"_

_"Pietro...he signed the Accords. He's not being seen as a threat anymore."_

 

"I won't hurt anyone else?" Celeste asked as a few tears fell down her face. Through the cracks in her wall, Stephen saw just how young she had to be. She couldn't have been more than twenty-five, though she looked older with all that she had seen. "You can promise me that?"

"I can promise you that you'll have greater control over what you can do," he said.

Celeste knew that wasn't exactly what she was looking for, but it was a start. It was better than what she had at that moment. She took it.

"Where do we go?"


End file.
